Finally, my build is finished, after asking here for advice (thanks to Abula, Hfat and other guys). Here is the link: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=62598

The goal: a new general-purpose main pc, mini-itx form, as quiet as possible, low power consumption, not too expensive. I had in mind this build for me but in the end I give it as a gift to my daughter; she needs it more than me (she works a lot with Photoshop and images)

I bought the case, the mobo, the HDD and the ram in "pc en linea" ( http://www.pcenlinea.com/ ): reasonable prices, fast shipping.I bought the SSD in ebay and the CPU in amazon: good prices, but with additional shipping charges. The total cost was around 500 bucks.I had spare at home: a PicoPSU, a power brick, and a case fan. I used a PicoPsu 90 with a power brick 12v -72w (generic, bought in ebay).

The pro: this build run windows 7 x 64 very snappy (thanks to the i3, the ram and the SSD). Is not expensive. Is quiet (not silent). Consumes very little power. The bad: sitting on the desk the two fans are audible (both at 1100 rpm). I could go fanless maybe, but it would cost me more money.

Power consumption is 20w idle. 47w at startup, up to 36-43w under heavvy load. Not bad at all, I know that an Intel mobo would do it better, but the difference is minimal. The ECS board has a lot of useful features, for example allow undervolt the ram and control the fans. I'm not interested in break a record, just to have a reasonable low power consumption.

Temperatures: with only two fans (the stock intel cpu fan, and a small generic case fan) at low rpm the i3 runs at 43 to 47 ºC (ambient: 20 ºC).

*note: this is my first time using a SSD, the performance boost surprised me. It take some time to adapt and optimize all the software, but it is not difficult at all. My 64gb SSD is only 40% filled, with Windows 7, Office 2010, Firefox, and some other software. All the rest is on the HDD.

yes leem, I tweaked all what the mobo let me change in bios for low power consumption. For example I undervolted a bit the ram (not too much, only from1.5v to 1.4v. I will try to push down the voltage a bit more). It isn't possible to undervolt the CPU, but the i3 is very efficient itself at stock voltages, I wouldn't touch it even if where possible to do. Of course, I tweaked windows 7 too.

A very importan thing in this kind of mini builds is to choose the right power supply. I had to quit the 450w psu that come with the case, because it was too loud and overkill for my small wattages. Imho the pico-psus are the best choice, or instead the winmate-like psus sold by electrodacus. You have to calculate first the whole and maximum wattage of your system, and then choose the closer model of pico-psu.

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